This is possibly the strangest, most brilliant, and highly disturbing TV interview in living memory.

Watch as this 11 year old Irish child, Hughie Malone, goes on the Late Late Show, to discuss his part as an alleged autistic child in the reality TV show “Autism And Me.” In the space of two minutes, Malone manages to give a look-in on Osama Bin Laden, and give a shout out to ISIS in Iraq, and finally at the very end… pay homage to the infamous digital frog-meme-god, ‘Kek.’

When asked by the clueless host what he wants to do when he grows up, the boy replies he wants to “drive planes into skyscrapers” (reference to 9/11 and Bin Laden mythology), and “move to Iraq and become a terrorist”(nod to ISIS in Iraq) before ending with the Alt Right tribute, “Praise Kek.”

Judging by his protruding eyeballs and dark circles and deft knowledge of 4chan esoteric symbolism, this is a child who (like many of his contemporaries) has spent many hours indoors, totally detached from the reality of what he’s talking about, while completely ensconced in transient online communities. Here, we can see the young Malone acting as a vehicle, bringing with him the dark humour and cool despondency of internet sub culture – suddenly into the mainstream spotlight. His allusions would be lost on most of the 1 million viewers who watched the live broadcast. More than anything though, this episode demonstrates to power for regional political and sub-cultural iconography to cross borders and go ‘international’ in a split second.

Whether or not the child knew what he was saying is debatable, but undoubtedly, after this epic display of chat board moxie on mainstream television, he will have already achieved cult-like status in the threads 4chan and Reddit.

21wire

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